Marijuana – Should It Be a Medical Option?

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Imagine if other drugs were approved through a similar approach…. For most of the conditions that qualify for medical marijuana use, the evidence fails to meet the FDA standards.” The go on to say the medical community should be left out of it if mention of the medical effects is just a ploy to get the drug legalized, and if this is not the case then why should the process be any different than any other medical drug process.

John A. Benson, Jr., MD, Janet E. Joy, PhD, and Stanley J. Watson, Jr., MD, PhD, co-writers of the Mar. 1999 Institute of Medicine report titled "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," wrote in their March 22, 1999 article published in Issues in Science and Technology, because the chronic use of marijuana can have negative effects, the benefits should be weighed against the risks. Also contending that the most identified health risk are associated with smoking and not to the cannabinoids that produce the benefits. Referring to smoking as primitive drug delivery system they recognize the benefit to smoking is the rapid onset of the drugs effect, and this tells us we need to develop a form of the cannabinoids that has the same rate of effectiveness.

There are many patients that are currently approved and taking the cannabinoids in some other form than smoking and the benefits are proving to be miraculous. Epileptic children who have never experienced so much due to having multiple seizures daily, are, under the treatment of the cbd oil, able to speak and be understood and able to hold something in their hands. Patients that have given up on life as they knew it due to pain so crippling they could not leave their house and sometimes, their bed, are going shopping without pain. For these patience and the patience family, especially for the parents of a very sick child for almost 15 years, watching their child correspond with their brothers and sisters, are not thinking about making marijuana legal for recreational use and they are not considering a ploy to make it legal to smoke marijuana, they are thinking what a miracle we have discovered for our loved ones and are not understanding why there is such a fight against them.

As I have read many opinions and views on the topic of legalizing marijuana, and listed the pros and the cons of the general public on the subject, it is difficult to decide which side has the more convincing argument. The ones that are against legalizing marijuana are against legalizing it for smoking and/or recreational use. Yet, they oppose but state in closing that if there is proof of medical benefits then we need to do more testing and have the FDA approve it for medicine. The ones that are fighting to pass laws to legalize, for the most part are not asking for recreation use to be legal but they are pleading for this miracle drug to be available to them without them having to break federal laws to obtain it. Some have moved their families to places like Colorado where it is legal, so they will not break laws and risk prosecution, so their loved ones can receive the benefits they have discovered to work for them.

It is a controversy that will continue to be debating on for a long time and meanwhile, if cultivation is allowed in amounts where there is enough to keep testing, the scientist and researchers will continue to get the FDA approval for medical marijuana.